Friday, June 24, 2011

I swear to the shoe gods I tried to wear ballet flats. I've been wearing them for a few weeks now. But a shoe addict can only go for so long without a fix. I swear it'll just be this once. Or maybe just a Friday treat? Once a week, I swear it.

Oh dear. I sound like I have a problem.

The good news is that my seven-year-old son did not make any comments or cast any disapproving looks at my shoes this morning. Maybe they work with the ankle-length skinny jeans in a way they did not work with full-length skinny jeans? That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

(I'm disregarding the theory that he was up late playing hockey and was too tired to notice.)

I had another brilliant idea this morning as I walked into work. We have two dedicated spots for pregnant ladies. I think I'm more disabled walking in these shoes (I'll admit, they're a little high, even for me, at least for an entire work day) than I was when I was pregnant.

I think we should have two dedicated stiletto parking spots.

Brilliant, right?

My ad agency does all sorts of special parking. We used to have special logos for you to park in if you drove a certain kind of car. We have a dedicated spot if you do something phenomenal. We have dedicated spots for certain executives, spots for visitors, spots for the handicapped...you see where I'm going with this.

What's two more spots for the heroes of fierce shoes?

Maybe if I suggest putting two spots for clogs way in the back, you'll get on board?

*Looks hopeful*

A few observations on my feet:

a. That's a heel pad so the shoes don't slip off. It is not a band-aid because these shoes are torturing me.

b. Those are my hammer toes. I've always had them. And yes, when I say "Hammer Toe" I do in fact sing it to the tune of "Hammer Time!" and then I do a little sideways crab jig. (But not in these shoes. I'm not a circus freak.)

c. If I knew how to Photoshop out those freaky foot bones, blue veins and wrinkles, I would. I'm sorry to subject you to the horror that is my feet. And seriously? Have you ever tried to take an attractive self-portrait of your feet? As it is, I had to take this picture upside-down and reverse it once I got into photo-editing. I have no skill for foot photography so please stop sending me those job offers for the hammer toe fetish site. It's not gonna happen. I don't care how much you offer me.

Thursday, June 16, 2011

As it is, the tears are streaming down my face at work. Today I found out that a dear, sweet friend has passed away suddenly.

She was far too young, far too kind and far too full of life for this to happen. I have known Char of the Ramblins blog since our days on Myspace in a tight knit group of blogging friends which spanned a good five years if you can believe it.

Char was so genuinely kind and gracious that I always aspired to be as decent a human being as she was. In five years of blogging and commenting, emailing and mailing even, I never heard a harsh or unkind word from Char. Towards anyone. It is no exaggeration for me to say that she inspired me to be a better person.

So it is with difficulty that I say goodbye to her. She was a woman who was passionate and kind. She was a remarkably talented photographer and she believed in living each day as though it was your last. She knew this life was precious. As she said, "Life is too short to waste a single day: eat cookies."

If you haven't already visited her photography blog, please do so today. She was a special lady and I will miss her.

Goodbye, sweet Char.

P.S.

Some of Char's blog friends have written posts for Char. If you know of any others, please let me know so I can link them:

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

I bought this dress to wear to a party with my husband's law partners:

And because some of you have two X chromosomes, I know you need to see the back:

Because the party was in the nebulous realm of "engagement party at a private residence," I was confused about the dress code. I should wear a dress, but not too dressy of a dress. I don't work with these people, so I don't need to them to respect me on Monday by wearing a suit or jacket. Also consider that I like to play up the role of Hot Second Wife so it needs to be tight.

BCBG Max Azria obliged me with this fitted cotton jersey dress, knee-length so I don't look like he picked me up from a trailer park, beige so I blend in, tight so I don't.

The only trouble with a tight jersey dress in beige is nipples.

"Nipples are a problem?" you ask (if you have a Y chromosome).

Yes. Not only do they like to poke out and say "Well, Hello and Howdy Doo!" especially while under the influence of air conditioning, they also show through any light-colored or sheer material. While I enjoy my role as Hot Second Wife, I don't want to look like Trashy Third Wife, okay?

For some of you amateurs, the solution seems simple: Wear a bra you, hippie.

To you I would say: You can't wear a bra under tight cotton jersey, you fashion nitwit. I have worked out with a personal trainer at 6:00 a.m. for a year so I don't need to wear foundation garments, okay? I don't want anything poking out. Not my nipples. Not my underwire bra.

As I saw it, I had two choices:

Breast petals. Yes, those are flower-shaped band-aids women put on their nipples.

Or:

Chicken cutlets. Yes, those are adhesive silicon boobs women stick on their chests.

My first instinct was to go with the breast petals. I did try them on with the dress and they did work. But the dress is so simple and the top does nothing to help a girl out in the Busty McGhee department. I felt I needed a little extra "oomph" to balance out the rest of the dress.

Though I had some concerns with the adhesive chicken cutlets. I had a dance floor incident a number of years ago. Suffice it to say: Hot summer night + Sweaty dancing = Chicken cutlets on the dance floor. Fortunately I had mastered The Bend and Snap from repeated viewings of Legally Blonde, so I knew how to retrieve my cutlets with panache.

Or so it seemed after a few martinis. For all I know I am still a legend at that club. Upon further reflection, I think "Chicken Cutlets on the Dance Floor" should be Lady Gaga's next hit song.

Since I knew there would be no sweaty dancing at the law partner house party, I slapped a pair of chicken cutlets under the dress and enjoyed the evening. As it turned out, I was appropriately dressed and the husband was appropriately appreciative. Business and marital success, now that's a hard-working dress.

After the party, my husband I went out because you don't go home when you have a babysitter. You go out to dinner and gaze at each other across a table for a few more hours. So you're in the mood to make another baby, duh.

He looked hot with the salt-and-pepper flecks in his hair complementing his gray suit. I have a gray hair and man-in-a-business suit fetish so this was practically porn to me. I noticed that he was staring at my chest throughout dinner and presumed it was because I looked hot.

"So tell me. What do you have in your bra?" he asked.

"Excuse me?" I looked at him, affronted.

"Did you put something in your bra?" he paused. "I mean, I noticed you're looking 'fuller,'" he said, opening and closing his hands.

"You can't ask me that!" I said, my voice getting higher.

You see, my husband and I have an understanding. Or so I thought. We believe in marital secrets. We believe in marital secrets such as shutting the bathroom door. We believe in not enacting bodily functions within each other's earshot or airspace. We believe in pretending that none of that unsavory stuff even happens. At all. Hell, we each pretend that we're the only people we've slept with even though to believe so is to believe in at least four immaculate conceptions. But we're fine with that. Anything to keep romance alive and mystery is a great friend to romance. Familiarity is not.

"Why not? I'm your husband. I want to know. What do you have going on in there?" He waved his hand in my chest's general vicinity.

I thought it over. Though I was compelled to comply with my husband's wishes and I do agree with complete transparency in our relationship when it's requested, I was hesitant to invite him behind the green curtain of Mandy's Cosmetic Tricks and Witchery.

I had just recently bragged to friends about how my husband had no knowledge of my use of Spanx® or chicken cutlets in seven years of attending black tie events together. Despite the fact that he would routinely remove my clothes upon our return home, I was cagey enough to have slipped the chicken cutlets and the Spanx into my purse before leaving any venue. Yes, I am that premeditated when it comes to sex. Besides, whose going to notice one lady losing a cup size by the end of a wine-soaked fundraising event?

"It's a chicken cutlet," I finally admitted with a sigh.

"Is that like a rubber thing you put in your bra?"

"Yes. Sort of." I stared at the Romance-Slayer to see what he would say next.

"You should have let your nips out. That would've been hotter." He looked at me, amused, and went back to eating his dinner. I stared at him and felt the shame that only a woman with a pair of silicon breast decoys sticking to her chest can know.

Okay, not really. But I still slipped them off in the car on the way home.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Look, I don't know how the Clogs got my email address. Maybe they found it here on Blogger. I'm pretty sure I can block them though. But as an opportunity for us all to learn something from my upsetting experience, let's keep this in mind:

Stalking: To harass or persecute someone with obsessive, unwanted attention.

Cyberstalking: Repeatedly sending messages that include threats of harm or are highly intimidating; or engaging in other online activities that make a person afraid for their safety.

Clogs, you've been put on notice. It's not funny anymore. Everyone knows I don't like you, I have never liked you, and your attention is not wanted. I hope this is the last time I hear from you. If not, I'm going to notify the authorities.

Friday, June 10, 2011

I’m wearing the rock-star-tight Chip + Pepper capri jeans I wore four years ago to seduce my then-boyfriend back into my romantic lady lair after a short break up. By “romantic lady lair” I mean "pants." And by “pants” I mean "heart." And by “heart” I mean “sacred vow of holy matrimony.” And by all that I mean, “give me your man seed so I can have a precious girl baby.”

Okay, I don’t mean any of that. But it all happened and we are both plenty happy about it, especially the girl baby. She seems to like life a lot. Plus she’s grown on us over the past year. We’ve decided to keep her.

But I did indeed mean to seduce him. You don’t jump up and down into a tight pair of denim capris with a very low Lycra content for just anyone. I mean, these pants are uncomfortable but they make me look like Audrey Hepburn so it had to be done.

Obviously.

Four years ago I scrubbed St. Ives Apricot Facial Scrub® all over my body with the zeal of a penitential Flagellant, applied Jergens Natural Glow® self-tanning lotion, blew out my hair, carefully applied makeup that I realized would melt in the June heat, and oh-so casually sauntered over to his house for “some beers and a laugh.” (His words.)

Maybe the “beers and a laugh” were his version of “denim sexy seduction pants?” I suspect they might have been. In fact, we did have some beers and many laughs, me in my tight pants and him sitting all the way over on the other side of the table. The two of us were like a couple of platonic buddies, with our heads-thrown-back and knee-slapping humor biathlon. The laughter was punctuated by many “Why, yes I will have another beer, thank you”s. We were complete frauds, of course.

As the night grew late, he asked me if I wanted another beer.

“I’d better not. If I have another, I’ll be drunk.”

“Then let me get you one!” he said cheerfully and leaped out of his chair.

We sat on the deck and laughed across the table, pretending to be friends. Pretending we weren’t sitting in one of those blue plasma balls with the sparks just flying all over the surface. It was an electrical storm on that deck and while my hair stood on end, we wiled away the hours as though we hadn’t a care in the world. It was all oh-so casual.

However, the pants would not be denied. When it was time to say goodbye and I was ready to go, he touched my hand. In hindsight I realize the Pants of Seduction came off much faster than they went on. They were new then and I recall being somewhat concerned about their tendency to leave blue dye on my thighs. But the night was dark, the man was hot, and I don’t think he cared what color my legs were. Who knows? Maybe he has a secret Smurf fetish. Or maybe I’m just hot in any color? Could be.

Today, the pants no longer leave blue dye on my legs. Today is the first time I’ve been able to wear them since that summer four years ago. Shortly after we got back together I decided to quit smoking. Happiness can make you do foolish things like care about your health because you want to live a long life with your soul matey. Happiness can also make you gain 10 pounds. That’s how much a full heart weighs, apparently.

But today I’m in the seduction pants. It’s a warm June night. Perhaps I’ll ask my husband to have some beers and a laugh on the deck tonight after the babies go to bed. I wonder if he knows that these are the pants that brought him back? I suspect that he might, if only subconsciously. We were walking up some stairs earlier today and like a gentleman, he let me go first. Then he proceeded to growl in a most ungentlemanly manner when he saw the pants walking up the stairs.

See?

These pants are powerful pants. These pants are win-your-man-back pants. These pants make really cute baby girls. Let me know if you need to borrow them.

Hi. I like Windex®. I spray it on everything. Counters. Floors. Refrigerators. Small children and pets.
I own my own social media and content marketing business called MandyFish Media. I spent the past 15 years as an advertising copywriter and a social media manager.
Currently I'm working on a memoir and trying to get some of my creative nonfiction published in literary journals. I plan to finish the memoir in January of 2016.
In my free time, I practice Buddhism and retail therapy as a means to stay sane. When that doesn't work, I go back to spraying things with Windex.